Editions of Office 2003

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If you’ve used previous versions of Office, and your office is upgrading or thinking of upgrading to Office 2003, one of your first concerns is probably, “What’s the difference between the newest version and the version I’ve been using?”The purpose of this chapter is to try to answer that question. We say “try” because the answer depends on which previous version of Office we’re talking about. If you’ve been using Office 97, you’ll find that the differences between it and Office 2003 are major and number in the hundreds. If you’ve been using Office XP, you’ll discover the differences are not extensive and are more on the order of evolutions. Nevertheless, the information in this chapter is intended to point you to areas of change and improvement and give you a running jump as you start to use this latest version of the Office suite of applications. ◆ Editions of Office 2003 ◆ New features that span applications ◆ What’s new in Word 2003 ◆ What’s new in Excel 2003 ◆ What’s new in PowerPoint 2003 ◆ What’s new in Access 2003 ◆ What’s new in Outlook 2003 COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL Editions of Office 2003 Office 2003 is available in several editions. Which edition you use or purchase depends on your working environment and your business needs. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 2

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Professional Edition 2003 This edition of Office 2003 is available in retail stores, can be purchased online, and comes preinstalled on some new computers. It includes the following applications: ◆ Word 2003 ◆ Excel 2003 ◆ Outlook 2003 ◆ Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager ◆ PowerPoint 2003 ◆ Access 2003 ◆ Publisher 2003

Small Business Edition 2003 This edition of Office 2003 is available in retail stores, can be purchased online, comes preinstalled on some new computers, and is available through volume and academic licensing. It includes all the applications available in the Professional Edition except Access 2003.

Note For information about licensing, go to www.microsoft.com/office/preview/choosing/default.asp, click the Volume-License Editions or Academic-License Editions link, and then click the appropriate Licensing Programs link.

Professional Enterprise Edition 2003 This edition of Office 2003 is available only through Microsoft volume-licensing programs. It includes all the applications available in the Professional Edition plus InfoPath 2003, the first totally new Office application in a long time. The last was Outlook, introduced in Office 97. You use InfoPath to design and fill out all those forms that have become ubiquitous in today’s businesses.

Standard Edition 2003 This edition of Office 2003 is available in retail stores, can be purchased online, and is available through volume-licensing and academic-licensing programs. It includes the following applications: ◆ Word 2003 ◆ Excel 2003 ◆ Outlook 2003 ◆ PowerPoint 2003 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 3

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Basic Edition 2003 This edition of Office 2003 is available only as a preinstallation on some new computers. It includes the following applications: ◆ Word 2003 ◆ Excel 2003 ◆ Outlook 2003

Student and Teacher Edition 2003 This edition of Office 2003 is available only for retail or online purchase. It includes the following applications: ◆ Word 2003 ◆ Excel 2003 ◆ Outlook 2003 ◆ PowerPoint 2003

Stand-alone Products In addition, Microsoft makes the following Office 2003 editions available as stand-alone products. In other words, you can purchase the following applications separately: ◆ Word 2003 ◆ Excel 2003 ◆ Outlook 2003 ◆ PowerPoint 2003 ◆ Access 2003 ◆ FrontPage 2003 ◆ OneNote 2003 ◆ Publisher 2003 ◆ Publisher 2003 with Digital Imaging ◆ Project Standard 2003 ◆ Project Professional 2003 ◆ Visio Standard 2003 ◆ Visio Professional 2003 ◆ InfoPath 2003 ◆ SharePoint Portal Server 2003 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 4

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New Features That Span Applications Many of the new features in Office 2003 are specific to individual applications, and we’ll discuss those in detail in the latter sections of this chapter. In this section, let’s take a look at new features common to all applications in Office 2003.

New Look and Feel If you’ve been using Windows XP, the new colors and the fresh design of the applications in Office 2003 will seem familiar. Not only has Microsoft continued its practice of integrating functionality, it has also integrated the look and the feel, which is evident in a better use of screen space and more efficient ways to move between tasks.

Support for Tablet PCs Even if you don’t own one, you’ve no doubt seen tablet PCs if you’ve signed for a UPS package. A tablet PC is a computer that runs Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, and you can write directly on the screen using a tablet pen. You can run Word 2003, PowerPoint 2003, and Excel 2003 on a tablet PC, and if you are using Word 2003 as your e-mail editor, you can run Outlook 2003. Using a tablet pen, you can now compose e-mail messages, make notes on a slide, edit a document, draft slides, and so on—in your own handwriting.

The Research Pane Often when you are creating or modifying a document, you need to verify information, get additional information, find specific facts, and so on. Nowadays, this is often as simple and quick as connecting to the Internet and your favorite search tool. With Word 2003, Excel 2003, PowerPoint 2003, and Outlook 2003, you can do this research even quicker. Using the new Research Pane, you can access an encyclopedia, a search tool, a dictionary, a thesaurus, a data bank, and on and on without leaving the application. To display the Research Pane, as shown in Figure 1.1, choose Tools ➢ Research. By default, you can search several thesauruses in several languages and translate between English, French, and Spanish.

Figure 1.1 The Research Pane 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 5

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To add research tools, follow these steps: 1. Click Research Options to open the Research Options dialog box (see Figure 1.2)

Figure 1.2 Adding research services

2. Click Add Services to open the Add Services dialog box. 3. In the Address field, enter the URL of the service, and click OK. 4. Click OK again in the Research Options dialog box. Now, when you want to do research, simply open the Research Pane, enter your criteria in the Search For box, and press Enter.

Windows SharePoint Services Windows SharePoint Services is a site on which you can create a Document Workspace site and use it to collaborate on documents using Word 2003, Excel 2003, PowerPoint 2003, or Visio 2003. When you open a document locally, the Office application gets updates from the Document Workspace site. You can then decide whether to incorporate those updates. For detailed information about SharePoint Services and how to use it, see Chapter 8, “Collaborating on Documents.”

Support for XML Extracting information from a document that was created for one purpose and using it for another purpose is a necessary task in today’s fast-paced business environment. What you are actually doing in this process is separating a document’s content from its format. In Word 2003, Excel 2003, and Access 2003, you can do this by saving the document in XML (Extensible Markup Language). Originally developed for the Web, XML is now used for myriad business purposes ranging from page layout applications to messaging systems to business-to-business data exchanges. Excel 2003, Access 2003, and Word 2003 all contain vast improvements in XML support. How- ever, many of these improvements are available only in Microsoft Office 2003 Professional Edition 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 6

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or the stand-alone version of Word 2003. In the “What’s New in Word 2003” section of this chapter, we’ll look at how to save Word documents in XML, one of the improvements available in all versions of Word 2003.

Information Rights Management In Office 2003, Information Rights Management (IRM) is a feature that you can use to protect documents. You can assign levels of access and expiration dates, create permission policies, remove restricted permissions, and so on. For details about how to use this feature to prevent documents of all kinds from falling into unauthorized hands, see Chapter 12, “Securing and Organizing Documents.”

What’s New in Word 2003 Even if you frequently work in Word all day long, you probably will never use every single feature that Word provides. If you’re like most of us, though, you do use certain features repeatedly, and you’ve even occasionally wished for a feature that wasn’t available. Perhaps you’ll find it among the new technologies in Word 2003.

Reading Layout View Increasingly, we get most of our information by reading it on the computer screen—e-mail messages, e-mail attachments, documents of all sorts, web pages, e-books, and so on. A new view in Word 2003 is designed expressly for the purpose of reading on-screen. Figure 1.3 shows a couple of pages from this book in Reading Layout view. Just above the document window is the Reading Layout toolbar. To view two screens at a time, click the Allow Multiple Pages button. To display a panel of thumbnails of the document screens, click the Thumbnails button. Figure 1.3

A document in The Reading Reading Layout view Layout toolbar

To display an open document in Reading Layout view, you can click the Read button on the Standard toolbar, press Alt+R, or choose View ➢ Reading Layout. The text is displayed in Microsoft ClearType, and you can increase or decrease the font size without changing the font in the original document. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 7

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If you want, you can edit a document in Reading Layout view. To track your changes, click the Track Changes button on the Reviewing toolbar. By default, Word opens a document that you’ve received as an e-mail attachment in Reading Layout view. If this is not your preference, follow these steps: 1. Choose Tools ➢ Options to open the Options dialog box, and click the General tab.

2. Clear the Allow Starting In Reading Layout check box. 3. Click OK.

Compare Documents Side by Side If your business generates documents that are simultaneously edited, annotated, or changed in any other way by more than one person, it can be useful to display two documents side by side, compare the differences, and edit. You can now do this easily in Word 2003. Follow these steps: 1. Open the documents. 2. Choose Window ➢ Compare Side By Side With. Word display the documents side by side in two separate windows, and displays the Compare Side By Side toolbar: 3. If you want to scroll both documents simultaneously, click the Synchronous Scrolling button. If you want to display the documents in their original positions, click the Reset Window Position button. 4. When you are finished comparing documents, click Close Side By Side on the toolbar. By default, Track Changes is enabled. Any changes you make in either document are shown in revi- sion marks.

Support for XML As we mentioned earlier, Office 2003 now has improved support for XML. In this section, we’ll look specifically at how to use XML in Word 2003. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 8

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When you save a document in XML, you must specify a schema. A schema is a set of rules that specifies the type of tags to apply to certain information and defines the structure of the document, such as headings, paragraphs, tables, and so on. In Word, you can save in XML using the Word schema (WordML), or you can attach any other schema. Word then attaches both schemas to the document when you save it as XML. To save a Word 2003 document in XML, using the WordML schema, simply open the document, choose File ➢ Save As to open the Save As dialog box, choose XML Document from the Save As Type drop-down list box, and click Save. To save a Word 2003 document in XML, using some other schema, follow these steps: 1. Open the document. 2. Choose Tools ➢ Templates And Add-Ins to open the Templates And Add-Ins dialog box, and click the XML Schema tab:

3. Select a schema by clicking either the Add Schema button or the Schema Library button. 4. Click the Validate Document Against Attached Schemas check box if you want Word to validate the document. 5. Click OK. The XML format is a topic that warrants far more discussion than we have space for here. If you are interested in pursuing the subject of XML in more depth, take a look at XML Complete (Sybex, 2001) or visit the XML section of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) at www.w3.org/XML.

Enhanced Document Protection In Chapter 12, you will learn about the many ways that you can now make documents more secure by restricting access, applying passwords, and so on. Here, however, we want to tell you about some new ways that you can protect documents by restricting formatting and allowing only selected editing. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 9

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When you restrict formatting, you prevent users of your document from such actions as changing a bulleted list to a numbered list, changing the font, using boldface, and so on. If your business attaches a company style sheet to all documents, you can use this feature to control and enforce the use of these styles. To restrict formatting, follow these steps: 1. With the document open, choose Tools ➢ Protect Document to open the Protect Document task pane.

2. Click the Limit Formatting To A Selection Of Styles check box, and then click Settings to open the Formatting Restrictions dialog box.

3. In the Checked Styles Are Currently Allowed list, click the check boxes for the styles you want to allow, and clear those that you don’t. 4. Click Recommended Minimum if you want to restrict users to only a limited number of recommended choices. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 10

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5. If you want Word’s AutoFormat features to be retained, click the Allow AutoFormat To Over- ride Formatting Restrictions check box. 6. Click OK. 7. In the Protect Document task pane, click Yes, Start Enforcing Protection to open the Start Enforcing Protection dialog box.

8. To password protect the document, enter a password in the Enter New Password (Optional) text box, and then confirm the password. If you don’t want to password protect the document, click Cancel. 9. Click OK. To specify editing restrictions, follow these steps: 1. With the document open, choose Tools ➢ Protect Document to open the Protect Document task pane. 2. In the Editing Restrictions section, click the Allow Only This Type Of Editing In The Doc- ument, and then choose a type from the drop-down list: No Changes (Read Only), Tracked Changes, Comments, Filling In Forms. 3. If you want to apply restrictions to only parts of the document and/or to certain users, select the portion of the document, in the Groups section, click the down-arrow to choose the user(s), click the check box, and then click the down-arrow again to display a submenu. You can then choose from the following: ◆ Find Next Region This User Can Edit ◆ Show All Regions This User Can Edit ◆ Remove All Editing Permissions For This User 4. Click Yes, Start Enforcing Protection.

More International Features Word 2003 provides better text display in non-English languages, whether you are creating foreign-language documents or using documents in a setting where more than one language is 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 11

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used. In Word’s Mail Merge, you’ll find improved support for local address formats based on the geographical region of the recipient and a greeting format based on the recipient’s gender where gender is required. To work with different languages in your Office programs, you need to first enable the language. You can access the Microsoft Office 2003 Language Settings dialog box by choosing Start ➢ Programs ➢ Microsoft Office ➢ Microsoft Office Tools ➢ Microsoft Office 2003 Language Settings.

What’s New in Excel 2003 There were major feature improvements and user interface changes in Excel 2002, so we didn’t expect to see many additional enhancements in Excel 2003. We weren’t disappointed: Excel 2003 is much like Excel 2002. There are a few new features, though, and at least one—increased functionality for list (database) users—is an incredibly well designed addition.

The Enhanced List Functionality A new Create List command on the shortcut menu and Data menu quickly turns on the AutoFilter and opens a new List toolbar with additional list commands. The AutoFilter drop-down menus include Sort commands in addition to the familiar filter criteria. Excel plants a Total Row at the bottom of the list. The Total Row’s drop-down arrows create dynamic totals for the list; when the list is filtered, the totals are recalculated to include only the displayed rows. Totals can be hidden and displayed from the new List toolbar. (See Figure 1.4.)

Figure 1.4 List border Excel’s new List features work so naturally that you’ll wonder why they weren’t there in previous versions.

Totals row List resizing handle

Other toolbar buttons publish the list to a SharePoint Team Services site and fire up the PivotTable Wizard. It’s easy to discern Microsoft’s goal in designing the list changes in Excel 2003: after defining a section of a worksheet as a list, the user should be able to handle all the common list tasks using a toolbar and the list itself. It was an ambitious goal, and Microsoft pulled it off. For more on the enhanced List feature, see Chapter 14, “Designing and Building Data Sources.” 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 12

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Enhanced Statistical Functions Aspects of the following statistical functions, including rounding results and precision, have been enhanced: BINOMDIST FINV LOGINV POISSON STEYX CHIINV FORECAST LOGNORMDIST RAND TINV CONFIDENCE GAMMAINV NEGBINOMDIST RSQ TREND CRITBINOM GROWTH NORMDIST SLOPE VAR DSTDEV HYPGEOMDIST NORMINV STDEV VARA DSTDEVP INTERCEPT NORMSDIST STDEVA VARP DVAR LINEST NORMSINV STDEVP VARPA DVARP LOGEST PEARSON STDEVPA ZTEST

What’s New in PowerPoint 2003 If you’re in business today, most likely you know about PowerPoint, and you know how to use it. The ability to create and deliver powerful presentation graphics is now an essential computer skill in most corporate environments as well as in educational markets and small-business enterprises. In fact, Power- Point is arguably becoming the worldwide standard for business and technical presentations, including reports to shareholders, marketing plans, promotional schemes, sales projections, meeting guidelines, product specifications, and so on. As with the other improvements and new features in Office 2003, Microsoft responded to user feed- back by including the following new features in PowerPoint. For information on how to get started with PowerPoint and how to use advanced features in your presentations, see Chapter 6, “Adding Electronic Punch to Your Presentations,” and Chapter 7, “Pushing PowerPoint to the Limit.”

Package for CD More often than not, you will create a PowerPoint presentation on one computer and run it from another. For example, you might create a presentation on your home computer and then run it on a computer in the conference room at work. Or you might create a presentation in your office and then run it from your laptop when you’re out in the field. As you probably know if you’ve used previous versions of PowerPoint, PowerPoint doesn’t need to be installed on a computer in order to run a PowerPoint presentation. Thanks to a feature called Pack and Go in previous versions of PowerPoint, you could copy your slides and a viewer to a CD and then run your presentation. In PowerPoint 2003, Pack and Go has been replaced with Package for CD. Using Package for CD, you can copy slides, supporting files, and linked files to a CD. The updated PowerPoint viewer (see the next section) is also automatically copied to the CD. You can also use Package for CD to create a folder for archiving or for posting to a network. For details about how to use Package for CD, see Chapter 7. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 13

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Updated Viewer Microsoft says that the most requested new feature in PowerPoint concerned improvements to the viewer. A viewer is a program that displays files in the same way as the program in which the files were created. As mentioned in the previous section, when you use Package for CD to copy a presentation, the viewer is included by default. The updated viewer in PowerPoint runs on any computer that has Windows 98 or later installed and includes the following improvements: ◆ High-fidelity output ◆ Support for graphics, animations, and media ◆ Support for viewing and printing

Improved Media Support In PowerPoint 2003, you can display a movie in full-screen view. To do so, follow these steps: 1. Right-click the movie, and choose Edit Movie Objects from the shortcut menu to open the Movie Options dialog box. 2. In the Display Options section, click the Zoom To Full Screen check box. 3. Click OK.

Support for Smart Tags Smart tags first appeared in Office XP in Word, Excel, and Internet Explorer. Microsoft promised to make them more widely available, and you can now use smart tags in PowerPoint 2003. Using smart tags, you can take actions in PowerPoint that you would typically need to open another application to perform. Text that is underlined with purple dots is a smart tag. Point to the underlined text to display the Smart Tag Actions button (a lowercase i in a circle). Click this button to see a list of actions. For example, if a person’s name is a smart tag, clicking the Smart Tag Actions button lets you add that person to your Address Book, schedule a meeting with that person, and so on. To insert smart tags in a presentation, follow these steps: 1. Choose Tools ➢ AutoCorrect Options to open the AutoCorrect dialog box. 2. Click the Smart Tags tab. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 14

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3. Click the Label Text With Smart Tags check box, and then choose the type of text you want recognized as a smart tag: a date, a financial symbol, or a person’s name. 4. Click OK. Now when the smart tag finds text that matches the recognizer, it underlines the text with purple dots and enables the associated actions.

The Slide Show Toolbar When displaying a presentation in Slide Show view, you will notice a new, really subtle toolbar when you point to the lower-left of the screen. This toolbar contains navigation options you can use when running a presentation. The advantages to this new feature of PowerPoint are twofold: it’s unobtrusive, and it’s handy. Unless you point to it, this toolbar is not displayed. And even when it is displayed, it’s just barely discernible. Consequently, the attention of your audience is drawn to your graphics, not to your slide show tools. The Slide Show toolbar, not shown here because the effects are too dim to display properly on the printed page, contains the usual Previous and Next buttons as well as two buttons that display menu commands for common tasks. Click the pointer arrow to select a type of pen, the ink color, the highlighter and arrow options, and to erase. Click the slide navigator to navigate between the slides in your presentation.

Save Slide Show Ink Annotations In some situations, it’s useful to be able to add handwritten annotations to your slides while you are presenting them. To do so, select a pen and then use it to add your notes. When you end the presentation, PowerPoint will ask if you want to keep your annotations. If you click Keep, your handwritten annotations are saved along with your slide show.

What’s New in Access 2003 Developments in Access 2003 help you create stronger and more robust databases. In this version, you’ll find considerable focus on foreseeing and addressing errors, enhancing security, and exchanging data with other sources. Many of the enhancements are designed for high-end users but even database dabblers can find something to help them in their work.

View Dependencies between Objects Cleaning up a database is an important step in a comprehensive design project. It’s inevitable that you’ll have database objects, tables, queries, forms, and reports that were created as part of the design process and that are no longer needed in the database. As the database is used, additional objects might be created that will outlive their usefulness. The problem has always been in figuring out whether an object is actually being used somewhere in the database. In Access 2003, that problem has been solved. You can 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 15

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now view relationships between objects to see if an object can be deleted without causing a problem in the database. Figure 1.5 displays the Object Dependencies task pane for the Products table in the North- wind sample database. Note To access the Northwind sample database in Access, choose Help ➢ Sample Databases ➢ Northwind Sample Database.

Figure 1.5 The Object Dependencies task pane helps you determine how an object is used and whether it can be safely deleted.

To open the Object Dependencies task pane, right-click any table, query, form, or report in the database window and choose Object Dependencies from the shortcut menu.

Automatic Error Checking in User-Interface Objects When you are creating an Access form or report, it doesn’t take much to make a simple error that could result in an afternoon of frustration until you find the problem. In Access 2003, common errors are picked up automatically, and Access gives you information about how to fix them. Auto- matic error checking is turned on by default. (Of course, you can turn it off if you’d rather go it alone.) Let’s say you inadvertently edit a field’s text box rather than its label, which destroys the rela- tionship to the field. Error checking immediately identifies the problem and marks the text box with a green error indicator in the top-left corner of the control. To find out what the problem is, select the control. When the Error Checking Options button appears, click the arrow in the button to open a menu, such as the one shown in Figure 1.6. This menu tells you what the problem is—in this case, Invalid Control Property: Control Source—No Such Field In The Field List—gives you options for correcting it and offers additional help. If you are satisfied that the error was intentional, you can also choose to ignore the error. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 16

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Figure 1.6 The Error Checking menu describes the problem and shows you some possible solutions.

To reset Error Checking Options or to turn the option off completely, choose Error Checking Options from the menu to open the Error Checking Options dialog box.

You can also access these options by choosing Tools ➢ Options and clicking the Error Checking tab of the Options dialog box.

Property Propagation of Table and Query Field Properties One of the more common problems in working with Access database design is the amount of rework you have to do if you change the properties of a field in a table. Say, for example, you create a database and the accompanying forms and reports that you distribute to several users to test. One of the first complaints is that the unit price fields are not displayed as currency. To fix this, you open each form and each report and change the format of every occurrence of the unit price field. Or, so as not to run into this problem in the future, you open the table that contains the unit price field, change the field’s format, and then reinsert the revised field into all the dependent forms and reports. If this experience sounds familiar, you will appreciate Access 2003’s ability to propagate changes in field properties to bound controls in forms and reports. Although you still can’t propagate changes to field names or field types, you can change a field’s description or any of the inherited properties on the General and Lookup tabs and then instruct Access to copy those changes to other objects that use them. To use the propagation feature, follow these steps: 1. Open a table in Design view. 2. Click to select the field you want to change. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 17

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3. Revise the description or change any of the properties on the General or Lookup tabs. If the property you changed is inherited by forms and reports, the Update Options button appears next to the property. 4. Click the Update Options button to access the options.

5. Choose the Update option on the menu to open the Update Properties dialog box.

6. Select which objects you would like to update, or, with them all selected, click Yes to update them all. If you change your mind or decide not to update any of them, click No To All or Cancel. If you would like to know more about inherited properties, click the Update Options button and choose Help On Propagating Field Properties.

Smart Tag Support Now in Access 2003, support for smart tags will help you add even more power to your databases. You can add smart tags to form controls to allow users easy access to additional actions related to data in a field. For example, in a company name field, a smart tag could let the user check stock information about the company; in a city field, users could check local news or weather information or even make travel arrangements to visit a client. Some predesigned smart tags are available in Access. Other smart tags can be obtained from www.Office.Microsoft.com or from third-party vendors. To add smart tags to a form control, follow these steps: 1. Open a form in Design view. 2. Right-click the control to which you want to add a smart tag and choose Properties to open the Properties dialog box. 3. On the Data tab, click the Smart Tag text box and then click the ellipsis button that opens to the right of the text box. 4. Select the smart tag you want to add and click OK. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 18

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That’s all there is to it. When you switch the form to Form view, you can distinguish the fields with smart tags by the triangle indicator in the bottom-right corner of the text box. Click the field and then click the Smart Tag Actions button to see the available actions. Figure 1.7 shows an example of a date smart tag. Figure 1.7 Smart tag actions are available by clicking the Smart Tag Actions button on the field.

Windows SharePoint Services Windows SharePoint Services is an exciting new collaboration tool first introduced in Office XP. It’s a flexible, customizable website-creation tool designed specifically for use by teams. One of its strengths is the ability to publish lists of data that multiple users need to access. These could be inventory, contacts, products, or any other imaginable lists. In Office 2003, you can import and export lists contained in Access tables and even create dynamic links from SharePoint to a table or query in an Access database. If you’d like to know more about how to use Access with SharePoint, refer to Chapter 8.

Macro Security Macros have been the carriers for numerous malicious viruses in recent years. Before running a macro in a database, it’s important that you are confident the macro is virus-free. In Access 2003, you can set security levels so you are prompted each time you open a database that contains VBA code. You can also block databases that are from untrusted sources. To set security levels in Access, choose Tools ➢ Macro ➢ Security.

If you set the security level to Medium or High, Access 2003 requires your computer to be con- figured to block unsafe expressions from Microsoft Jet, the database engine that runs Access. After 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 19

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you close the Security dialog box, you are prompted to block unsafe expressions. Click Yes for Access to install the expression blocker. You must then restart Access. If you are creating databases that contain macro projects, you can sign the projects with a digital certificate. This assures users that the macros are from a trusted source and that they have not been altered in any way. To find out more about digital certificates, see Chapter 12.

Context-Based Help to Make SQL Easier If you are designing complex queries, a little knowledge of SQL (Structured Query Language) can go a long way in helping you debug a problem or add complicated conditions. Up until now, finding help took a little work. Not anymore. With Access 2003, you can press F1 on any SQL expression in SQL view of a query and get context-sensitive help, as shown in Figure 1.8. Figure 1.8 F1 displays context-sensitive help for any SQL expression.

This not only makes it easier for the experienced programmer to get help, but it’s a great way to develop your SQL skills.

What’s New In Outlook 2003 Outlook 2003 is the Office 2003 application with the most-significant enhancements. Outlook is a personal information manager that has all but replaced those organizer notebooks that were so ubiquitous in office environments a few years ago. It is a scheduler, an address book, a contact manager, a calendar, a task manager, and more. In this section, we’ll briefly describe the new features. See Chapters 2, 3, and 4 for details.

The Navigation and Reading Panes If you’ve used previous versions of Outlook, you may be among those users who complained about the organization (or lack thereof) of the Outlook window. In Outlook 2003, you’ll find a cleaner 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 20

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and more accessible interface, shown in Figure 1.9. The Outlook bar has been combined with the folder list into the new Navigation Pane. The Navigation Pane takes a little getting used to but in the long run streamlines access to Outlook’s folders and views. The Preview pane has morphed into the Reading Pane. The Reading Pane greatly reduces eyestrain while displaying more of each message without having to scroll so much. Figure 1.9 The newly designed Outlook interface

The Go Menu In the Outlook menu bar, you’ll find a new menu—Go. You use the items on this menu or their associated shortcut keys to switch panes in the Navigation Pane.

The Junk E-mail Filter Although most of us can no longer get along without access to e-mail, we could get along nicely without junk e-mail. The new Junk E-mail Filter in Outlook 2003 won’t prevent the activities of determined junk e-mailers, but it will help you deal with these messages. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 21

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This filter does not block certain types of messages or messages from particular senders; it does analyze messages in terms of content and time sent and send them directly to a Junk E-mail folder. You can then dispose of them in whatever manner you choose. By default, the filter will identify the most obvious junk. To specify other ways of dealing with junk e-mail, you use the Junk E-mail Options dialog box. For details, see Chapter 2.

Search Folders Outlook’s new Search folders feature is a valuable addition to Outlook’s organizational tools. With Search folders, you can set up virtual folders that pull messages together that meet certain criteria. Out- look 2003 comes with several default Search folders: Unread Mail, For Follow-Up, and Large Mes- sages. You can create Search folders to display all messages from a particular client, messages from a specific time period, or any other filter criteria of your choosing. You can access Search folders from the Navigation Pane below the Sent Items folder. For more information about Search folders, see Chapter 2.

Open Multiple Calendars Side by Side Outlook 2003 makes it easy to work with shared calendars. Any calendars you have access to open automatically when you launch Outlook. In addition, calendars of all types are available for side-by-side viewing. You can also view additional calendars that you create and calendars in public folders using the Side-By-Side Calendar view. Figure 1.10 shows two personal calendars and one shared calendar side by side. For details about side-by-side view, see Chapter 3.

Figure 1.10 Calendars in side-by-side view 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 22

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Message Arrangements A handy way to organize lots of message is to arrange them in groupings. Outlook 2003 comes with 13 preset groupings, called arrangements: Attachments Arranges messages, by received date, into a group that has attachments and a group that has no attachments. Categories Arranges messages, by received date, into categories. Conversation Arranges messages by thread (subject matter) and then sorts them according to who replied to whom and when. Particularly helpful when you have many back-and-forths about a particular topic. Date Arranges messages in chronological order, starting with the most recent. This is the default arrangement. E-mail Accounts Arranges messages, by received date, into your various e-mail accounts if you have more than one account. Flag Arranges messages according to the colors of their flags. Any messages not flagged are sorted into a separate group. Folder Arranges messages, by received date, alphabetically, by folder names. From Arranges messages, by received date, by names on the From line. Importance Arranges message, by received date, according to their importance: High, Normal, Low. Size Arranges messages into the following categories according to size: ◆ Enormous (more than 5MB) ◆ Huge (1–5MB) ◆ Ve ry large (500KB–1MB) ◆ Large (100–500KB) ◆ Medium (25–100KB) ◆ Small (10–25KB) ◆ Tiny (less than 10KB)

Subject Arranges messages, by received date, alphabetically, by what’s in the Subject line. To Arranges messages, by received date, alphabetically, by the name in the To line. Type Arranges messages, by received date, according to their type—e-mail messages, meeting requests, task requests, and so on. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 23

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Arrangements are available only in Table view. To select an arrangement, click the Arranged By heading, and choose an arrangement.

Quick Flags When you receive a lot of e-mail, it can be a challenge to separate the information-only messages from the ones that require follow-up. With Outlook 2003, you can quickly assign a flag to any message in the Inbox. For details about how to assign flags, see Chapter 2.

Desktop Alerts Outlook 2003 includes a new notification option called Desktop Alerts. Desktop Alerts are semi- transparent boxes that appear in the bottom right of your screen notifying you that you have a new message. The Desktop Alert includes the time and date of the message, the name of the sender, and the subject. For more information about Desktop Alerts, see Chapter 2.

The Select Names Dialog Box When sending an e-mail message, the most direct way to access your address books is to click the To button in the Message window and open the Select Names dialog box (see Figure 1.11). In Outlook 2003, the Select Names dialog box has been redesigned so that more address information is visible without scrolling. If you still have trouble seeing everything, you can resize the dialog box by dragging the border—one of those simple improvements that makes such a difference. You can now more easily distinguish e-mail addresses and fax numbers for a contact.

Figure 1.11 The newly designed Select Names dialog box makes it easier to see information related to an address.

The Contacts Form Supports Image Files To us, associating a face with a name is always helpful as we communicate in today’s electronic business environment. In Outlook 2003, you can add a digital photo to the information you collect for contacts. To add a picture, open the Contact window (see Figure 1.12), click the Add Contact Picture button, locate and select the photo, and click OK. 4228c01.qxd 12/10/03 11:38 AM Page 24

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Figure 1.12 Adding a photo to a contact’s information

Exchange Enhancements If you are running Outlook and have an e-mail account on an Exchange server, Microsoft recommends that you use Cached Exchange Mode. In Cached Exchange Mode, you have a copy of your mailbox on your computer that is frequently synchronized with the Exchange server. With this configuration, you can continue to work when your connection to the server is down. Outlook automatically reconnects when the server is back online. In addition, you can now access your Exchange server remotely through the Internet without using VPN (virtual private network), smart cards, or security tokens. For more information about this and about using Cached Exchange Mode, see the administrator of your Exchange server. As you may know, writing a book about a new version of any software is a work in progress even after the books are printed and distributed. In this chapter, we’ve attempted to alert you to the new features in Office 2003, but as you work with the Office applications, you may indeed run across additional enhancements.